League’s Newest Champions: Rakan and Xayah

The two newest champions Riot released on April 4th hail from the mysterious place known as The Vastaya. The Vastaya was recently added to the League of Legends lore and is described as a new and exotic land filled with strange chimera creatures. As evidence, both the recently released champions, Rakan and Xayah, have a humanoid appearance but also exhibit several avian features.

A Match Made in Heaven

Although the both champions can be played separately, they work well as a duo lane combo because a few of their abilities gives the others a bonus that only occurs when both champions are played together. For example, Xayah’s W, Deadly Plumage, gives Rakan the ability’s effects also if he is nearby when she casts it. In addition to the bonus abilities while being played together, the two get a special synced recall if they are both near each other. The recall can be seen here:

Strengths and Weaknesses

Xayah can be played in several lanes, but so far it looks like ADC and Jungle are the two roles that best suit her. She is quite weak in the early game due to her relatively short range, but becomes very strong in the later stages. Her wave clear is excellent with her E, Bladecaller, allowing her to shred through waves quickly. Her ultimate Featherstorm gives her both defensive and offensive capabilities by rendering her untargetable for several seconds while throwing forward a cone of feathers. This allows her to dodge spells such as Ashe’s ultimate, Syndra’s ultimate, and many more.

Rakan is a Support champion and has a great kit with a heal, knockup, shield, and charm providing a lot of utility for his team. The downside to Rakan is that he does not do very much damage so after his full rotation of spells, enemies can punish him and his ADC. However, he should be pretty effective in lane with his continuous healing and shielding which should allow his lane to take more favorable trades. His knockup, Grand Entrance, followed by his ultimate The Quickness is a formidable combo due to its chain CC of knocking the enemy(s) up while following up with a charm.

Early Days Yet

It is hard to say where these champions will end up. Riot has a history of making new champions very strong and nerfing them later. Although Xayah seems to be a fairly decent ADC and Jungler, Rakan’s kit is insane in the amount of utility it provides his team. Still it remains to be seen how well these champions will do on the rift in the coming days.